Theme Of Faith In Catcher In The Rye

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In The Catcher in the Rye, Salinger explains faith, relationships, and immaturity.
Holden Caulfield is a sixteen year old in 1946 that attends a private school. Holden expresses very little faith in The Catcher in The Rye. Holden tells us not long after the story begins that he is writing the story not long after the events happen and that he is in some sort of asylum (Brooks). Holden’s overall attitudes about his life is actually very negative and he acts as if he has no faith in him ever having a future. His emotions very quickly lessen throughout this tiring story. After Holden finishes his story, you feel as though you just came off a roller coaster of emotions and crazy events (Tolchin).
Holden starts his story by telling us about why
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Holden Caulfield meets some very interesting people and reconnects with old friends throughout the book. To say the least, Holden probably has the best relationship with his sister, Phoebe. The people he thinks he can trust, teachers and friends, turn on him. The baseball glove from his dead brother, Allie, was Holden’s prize possession. This baseball glove is probably the only possession Holden has left to keep him even trying to succeed in life, because at the rate he is going, Holden does not have a very good attitude about life. Salinger starts with Mr. Spencer as the first character Holden encounters. Mr. Spencer is Holden’s history teacher. ““I flunked you in history because you knew absolutely nothing”… “But absolutely nothing. I doubt very much if you opened your text book even once the whole term. Did you? Tell the truth, boy.” … “Well, I sort of glanced through it a couple of times,” I told him. I did not want to hurt his feelings. He was mad about history.” (Salinger 6). It is very clear that Mr. Spencer and Holden are close for a student-teacher relationship, after all he did go to his house personally to say goodbye. Holden gets a little aggravated at Mr. Spencer for reading one of his papers out loud to him, but he then started to “shoot the bull” with Mr. Spencer and completely forgets (Salinger 7). After a little while longer Holden decides to leave. He …show more content…
“Holden, meanwhile, has tried to explain why he keeps getting bounced out of one prep school after another ("I was surrounded by phonies"), but in a world where young people are supposed to be vitally concerned about their futures, where "playing the game" means writing the sort of essays that teachers such as Spencer expect, and where fitting in is much more important than sticking out, Holden is destined to be written down as a loser.” (Pinsker) When Holden told Phoebe she kept repeating “Daddy’ll kill you!” and it made Holden feel bad (Salinger 89). Mr. Spencer also makes Holden feel bad when he reads his failure of an essay out loud to him

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